Bottles fitted with crown-type caps for beer, mineral water, fruit juices, etc. have been known and used for several decades and are held in high esteem because of their properties of airtightness and low cost. Furthermore, such crown-type caps are adaptable for use on conventional necks which have low-fragility during storage, transport, and handling operations.
Many hand tools have been developed and marketed to enable these caps to be removed easily and without risk. However, it is practically impossible to recap the bottles with these caps because the latter are deformed by uncapping and no longer have their hermetic properties; it is then necessary if recapping is desired, which is frequently the case for carbonated beverages, to employ one of the various models of stoppers on the market.
It has been suggested that devices enabling such caps to be refitted onto their original bottles be developed. For example, a lever-handled tool has been devised which at one end is provided with a cap-removing claw and at the other end with an open circular ring which adjusts to the diameter of the cap, the ring being made to grip the edge of the cap firmly by rotating the lever in the horizontal plane of the ring. However, such an operation is delicate and usually causes the cap itself to rotate on the bottle neck to such a point that the achievement of hermetic recapping may be considered a phenomenon of pure chance.
A tool has also been recommended whereby a lever handle plays the role of a cam, articulating on a flexible split ring so as to enable this ring to tighten again by rocking the handle. For a number of years a bottle-recapping system by cooperation of a grip hinged on such a ring has been on the market. According to a variation based on the same principle, the articulation shaft of the handle can be mounted on flexible claws which are an extension of the ring and the latter can be fitted in a known manner with uncapping claws so that the uncapping and recapping operations can be combined with the same tool. In this embodiment, however, there is the problem of wear of the metal parts in contact, in particular the flexible claws of the ring and the lips of the V-slit handle provided for passage of these lips at each rocking movement of the grip.